Charging Ahead

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By Dennis Simanaitis, Engineering editor

Aug 6, 2009

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The Ninth International Advanced Automotive Battery & EC Capacitor Conference offered a wealth of information on this most timely topic. Its takeaways are many, to be shared here and in future columns.

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In particular, a most authoritative source there was Menahem Anderman, whose Advanced Automotive Batteries consultancy organized this annual symposium. An articulate proponent of electric vehicle technology, Anderman is also a realist. Consider: His business is selling facts and data, not batteries nor EVs.

Lithium Battery Cost Is Still Extreme
In describing trends from demonstration through niche to mass market, Anderman noted that nickel/metal hydride technology makes up 99 percent of today's advanced automotive battery market, predominately in "strong" hybrid electric vehicles, i.e., the and similar full HEVs. Lithium batteries offer greater specific power and energy, and they're the preferred technology for plug-in HEVs and pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs). However, energy density, calendar and cycle life, reliability, safety — and cost! — are still big challenges. If matters are pushed prematurely, Anderman observed, things could backfire. "The industry," he said, "does not need a 2011 version of Who Killed the Electric Car?"

As a specific example, he offered data on the GS-Yuasa/Mitsubishi battery used in the latter's i MiEV. (See "," March 2009 and archived at roadandtrack.com, for our mini test of this neat urban BEV.) Its 441-lb. lithium battery pack has a maximum output power of 60 kW and 16 kWh of energy (this latter, the same as the PHEV 's). Anderman estimated that the i MiEV battery alone costs $16,800.

Mitsubishi i-MiEV Is Available in Japan
This past summer began leasing its to corporate and governmental fleets in its home market. (The added hyphen in i-MiEV identifies the production version of this BEV.) Sales to private customers will start in April 2010.

Full details are given of its recharging options; these, considered state of the art for BEVs. A full charge on a 200-volt/15-amp household circuit would take approximately seven hours. A 100-volt/15-amp hookup would take twice this long. A special 3-phase 200-volt setup could achieve an 80-percent charge in about 30 minutes. Mitsubishi also notes that actual charge times are affected by ambient temperature and power source status.

The i-MiEV's Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price is set at ¥4,599,000 (approximately $48,250) including a home-market consumption tax of ¥219,000 (about $2300). For fiscal 2009, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry offers a "maximum subsidy" of ¥1,390,000 (about $14,580). Also, current Japanese incentives promoting eco-cars give exemption from excise and weight taxes normally applied to new vehicles. The net lease price of an i-MiEV is equivalent to $33,663.

More than once, specialists have told me to figure battery value at half the current BEV price. Menahem Anderman's $16,800 — cited well before Mitsubishi's announced pricing — is uncannily close to this.

Not long after its initial announcement, Mitsubishi said it expects to cut the i-MiEV's price by more than half during the next decade. Tax breaks and government subsides were cited as reasons for this target, apparently combined with economies of scale as BEV demand increases.

It's Your Environment
I like putting nice people in touch with one another for good purposes. And a California Fuel Cell Partnership confab at the University of California Irvine gave me such an opportunity. I'm thinking of , "an eco-educational online community where schools, teachers, students and youth groups collaborate with eco-conscious business and community organizations." Its website displays lots of activity backing this up.

The website's Barbara Barnes set up a visit by "Green Team" students from Lakeside Middle School and the Anaheim Transportation Academy, this latter, a campus within a campus at Anaheim High School. They met with UCI grad students to learn about CalFCP cars.

A Robotic Brain Drain?
Robots are increasingly clever, even to inventing things quite on their own. A continuing thread in my weekly Science, magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, brings up an interesting point of intellectual property: Can a robot patent something?

Curiously, wording of American patent law suggests otherwise. "A person shall be entitled to a patent..." is the relevant phrase. By contrast, the European Patent Convention specifically allows a patent filed "by any natural or legal person, or any body equivalent to a legal person by virtue of the law governing it."